Korea was touch and go at times. Had the 2nd CV battle ended in a decisive defeat instead of a draw I would have been in serious problem. But the OP was worth every single loss I suffered. I did suffer though.

Iīll try and get a summary up today with some maps and stuff. For fun we are going to rerun the last turn and see if we can trigger a naval battle. Place your bets! You know the Japanese SCTF. Allied TFs:

Game over! ______________________________________________________________________________

Wow, pretty odd to not have a turn to fiddle with! Iīll just had to write long monologues here instead!

------------------------ 1942 ------------------------ In all honestly I canīt remember much short of the CV battle. That is in the AAR on page 1. I remember trying to make progress in SOPAC. Because of inexperience this was pretty much a disaster. Erik also did a halfhearted attempt on the Perth region witch was easily repulsed. I even managed to sneak a Cruiser force into the MKB. No sinkings though.

We also had a bit of a tussle in NOPAC where the CVE Unyo was sunk by naval gunfire from the North Carolina. That was pretty cool. We also sank Chuyo with CV planes from Wasp?. Canīt remember the details.

China ended in the usual allied disaster. Aerial bombing and constant pressure made sure supply was out in the autumn of 42. At that point I had more AV then I had supply. I really wish some AE wizard could find some balance to China. Its actually pretty fun to play but its so unevenly balanced supply wise it ends up being a walk over Japanese win. Once supply is gone there is absolutely nothing you can do. Iīm sure Erik can vouch for that after being on the other side of the supply situation in 45. I know people keep saying it can be defended. But I know enough of this game now to say with confidence that against a Japanese concentrated effort in China the outcome is 100% given. It shouldnīt be.

All in all I think we had a pretty interesting 42. Erik was pushing with just enough pressure to keep me off balance and very, very afraid.

------------------------ 1943 ------------------------ This year was nothing short of a disaster for the Allies. It started with a 8 hex strike hitting my remaining 3 CVs around Anatom (between Noumea and Suva). That strike also sank the Washington and North Carolina. This was the first of three(!) 8 hex strike Erik got in during the game. Iīm no fan of this "feature" and even less so now with the CV strikes always getting though CAP.

Anyway, this battle started a depressing time for me. I spent 1943 doing little but feeling sorry for myself. I was convinced that without CVs there is nothing you can do. That is very, very wrong. CVs are very nice to have but its perfectly doable to make progress without them. I basically just sat there and did nothing for a full year. This was perhaps the most boring time in our game with very little happening at all.

In December 43 we did land with complete surprise at Port Moresby though!

------------------------ 1944 ------------------------ In complete contrast to 43 this was THE year for the allies. We did make some spectacular progress here.

Port Moresby was eventually secured. This was pretty much the first Allied success in the land war. We had some spectacular Naval actions in the area throughout 44. For the fist time the IJN started to take some losses. Mainly DDs but also 4 of the precious CAs was sunk. With the fall of PM the Allied made a quick advance up against the New Guinea coast. The only larger Japanese LCU in the area was the 22nd ID that was wrecked at PM. Erik relied on smaller NavGuards behind forts at most of the bases. This was not enough to stop Allied IDs backed up by armor, artillery and combat engineers.

Rabaul was bypassed and Hansa Bay provided us with a level 9 AF needed for the 4Es. Around this time I realized by using witpqs "Intel Monkey" that all the Japanese IDs was at Burma. I quickly decided to shift focus from Burma to NG and it paid off. In just a couple of months we reached the Northern tip of New Guinea.

In the meantime we secured Northern OZ and made a jump over to the lower DEI.

During the Summer and Autumn of 44 we also started to move in the CENTPAC. This was not a necessary move but rather done for practice. Baker and Canton was successfully secured and gave us good practice in Atoll attacks. Wake was also secured. At this time I decided to pour all the huge Allied LCU reinforcement in mid 44 into liberating the Marianas. This was also successfully done with almost no allied losses.

The Marianas while not really necessary was good fun, good practice and it did shorten the supply line to the Philippines considerably.

Burma was a complete stalemate with Japanese forces digging in at good defensive positions. With no room to maneuver the Allied forces was forced to a complete stop that lasted for almost a year. That all changed in 11/44 when the Allies bypassed the Japanese positions in Burma and landed at Tavoy. Erik was a bit tardy in pulling back and we managed to cut off and isolate the entire Japanese Burma Army. I think it was 22 Divisions or something like that?

In the end that was probably the most fatal blow to the Japanese ground forces in the war. It meant that the Allies could secure Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and Indochina in just a matter of weeks. This is were I first saw the benefit of highly mobile units racing ahead of the main army.

The year ended with the allies at the gates of Manila.

------------------------ 1945 ------------------------ I guess you all know this year yes?

Game over! ______________________________________________________________________________

Thoughts on the Air war.

The Air war has been something I often come back to in my AAR. Both positive things and negative things. The air war can be a lot of fun if you give it a nudge in the right direction. But there are some things that doesnīt work very well.

Its no secret Iīm not a fan of PDU ON. I think it kills a lot of immersion and fun as it completely removes a lot of the air frames from the war. Luckily for me Erik wanted to try out most of the Japanese planes so I still got to see most of them. But many (most?) Japanese players would stick with only a couple of airframes to "streamline production". This also goes for the allied player. I was using only Corsairs and P47s for most of 43-45. Spit VII for defense. Thats it. Its not much fun and if I pick up another game I would certainly try and get my opponent to try out PDU OFF.

"2nd MVR band HR" I donīt know who started this HR but almost everyone was using it when we started playing so we did too. Its a crappy HR. Probably the most devastating, abusive and intrusive HR you can possible have. It absolutely ruins the air war. What this HR does is to make the most important factor of an airplane its ability to get to the highest MVR band. In fact it kind of makes it the ONLY important factor. We all know by now how powerful "the dive" is. What this HR does is to make that mechanic even stronger. In 42 it will make an already superior plane (Tojo) even more powerful as it can dive down on P39/P40s stuck down at 20k. In 43 the roles will be reversed with the P47 entering the war. And once the Frank "R" arrives in unlimited numbers it will devastate the already severely outnumbered Allied Air Force.

Erik and I decided to get rid of this HR in early 45. We set a max ALT of ALL planes to 32k. This saw a drastic reduction of the extreme results we had seen earlier. The extreme results are still there though when Sweeps hit a lower set CAP/LRCAP. I hope Michealm can tweak this at some point. The air war shouldnīt be all about who can get the highest. It should be about who has the best planes and pilots. Perhaps in the future when more people realize this we will see a change.

Nightbombings is another source of constant debate. Overpowered? Not overpowered? I would say: Its very powerful but also a necessity. With Japanese fighters able to drop B24s at a rate of 1 4E per airborne Fighter the only way for the allied player to hit Japanese industry and oil is by night bombings. A fair compromise I would recommend is to do what we did. Allow nightbombings of industry and oil but donīt use it for Airfield and port attacks. NFs and Flak do work. I lost 634 B29s during the game. 110 of those to Flak. The rest to NFs. that is not even keeping up with reinforcements. After the Marianas Campaign against the HI I had to stand down the B29s for 3 months to allow the squadrons to fill out to 2/3rd strength. My total B29 force had by then shrunk from 550 planes to 250. After just 2 months of bombing. While I did knock out a lot of HI/LI in the HI I also wrecked my B29 fleet in the process. This campaign also cost me the creme of the allied bomber pilots. Most had between 70 and 90 in EXP and many had 90+ GRND and DEF skill. After they were gone I had to made due with worse pilots and that of course increased losses.

Pilot training is sadly a part of AE now. You will need to play this "mini game" or be at a serious disadvantage. I donīt think it adds one bit to the game besides more clicks. In the end all it does is give both sides an unlimited pool of generic pilots. From what I can tell by comments from some developers this was actually something many of them was very reluctant to put into the game. For good reason I think. If I could give one advice regarding this is to not allow any kind of re sizing using CVs for either side. This could PERHAPS make pilots a bit more valuable and limit the number of squadrons on map doing combat duty. I strongly feel pilots should mean something. Its too easy and quick to get them into 50 EXP and 70 Major skill as it is now. Only shortage I have felt is bomber pilots and that is because I overdid fighter pilot training.

The RAF is really, really struggling due to its 16 squadrons plane size. This should probably changed for balancing reasons. At least in the later years.

My conclusion is that the air war works reasonably well even into the late game. But you have to give it a hand and donīt push it around in or will collapse. PDU ON is a powerful Japanese tool and most Japanese players have become very skilled in using their industry and research to make the most of it. If you play with PDU ON be ready for a really tough battle with your plane pools more then the actual air war. And donīt do "Realistic Research OFF".

Damn Iīm already suffering from withdrawal syndrome! Suggestions for other games are also welcome. Currently playing XCOM: Enemy Unknown and CIV 5. Any "must play" games I have missed during the last 2-3 years? Eyeing Baldurs Gate 2 Enhanced edition as I havnīt player the original game in years. Also have EDTBR on the HD. But I could never quite get into to it. The interface is even more GG horrible then AE.

Fired up WITE and thought I might give it a go. But I donīt know if they fixed the horrible, horrible air system? And WITW couldnīt be too far off now?

I replayed BG2 during Christmas and enjoyed it immensely. I bought the game at gog.com bundled together with BG1, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights 1+2 and Ultima 4 at a 90% weekend rebate, meaning that the whole bunch cost me around ~$10

< Message edited by Grollub -- 3/9/2014 12:08:34 PM >

_____________________________

Not mastering metaphores is like cooking pasta when the train is delayed"

Hi all. I just wanted to pop in and congratulate Jocke, firstly. It has been a fantastic journey. I second his sentiment that it's tough to realize it's come to an end.

Secondly, don't abandon AE completely yet, Jocke! The scenarios are always interesting even if a long campaign is not in the cards for the near future. I alas want to just take some time and do tests on some things I've meant to look into for the past few years but haven't had time for. So much still to understand.

Anyway. I look forward to digging through this side and seeing what it looked like from the Allied position.

_____________________________

"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill

Well done Joc, Its good to see that the Allies still have a lot of scope for manoeuvre despite some the apparent assistance the JFB get in the game.

While its sad that AI seems to have done Obvert in, its only fair considering some of the situations you got put into.

I think that you and Obvert, GJ & Rader have shown some of the failings in the system in these later years, hopefully some tweaking can be done to solve them.

The AI giveth and the AI taketh!

Indeed there are some things not working too well in the game. But many of those are due to player choices like HRs ,PDU ON, Realistic research OFF etc. All in all I think it works pretty well with two exceptions: China and "the dive". Both are pretty much out of the scope of what players can do something about. I hope it might be tweaked a bit but I doubt it will be.

But for the most part I think both Erik and I have had a very fun experience. And given the scope of the game you canīt help but be baffled by how the Devs managed to make it all work out reasonably well in the end.

I replayed BG2 during Christmas and enjoyed it immensely. I bought the game at gog.com bundled together with BG1, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights 1+2 and Ultima 4 at a 90% weekend rebate, meaning that the whole bunch cost me around ~$10

Cool! I might give the enhanced version a go. Looks pretty awesome to play in high res. Just installed this now though! Well see if the map mod and the new patches can get me hooked again. Thinking of firing up a game as the SU.

Hi all. I just wanted to pop in and congratulate Jocke, firstly. It has been a fantastic journey. I second his sentiment that it's tough to realize it's come to an end.

Secondly, don't abandon AE completely yet, Jocke! The scenarios are always interesting even if a long campaign is not in the cards for the near future. I alas want to just take some time and do tests on some things I've meant to look into for the past few years but haven't had time for. So much still to understand.

Anyway. I look forward to digging through this side and seeing what it looked like from the Allied position.

Haha, I first thought I accidently stumbled into your AAR. God knows I have done that a couple of times!

In all honestly I canīt really see myself NOT playing this game. Iīll probably get sucked back in again after a couple of weeks. Already got some ideas...! But Iīm going to enjoy a break from it for now though and play some other games I havnīt had time for. And perhaps watch a movie or two. And go outside and other radical things!

But in the end we all know this is the greatest and best game in the world and nothing can compare to it. Thats why we keep coming back and we still see games going after such a long time.

Game over! ______________________________________________________________________________

Here are the aircraft pools. Due to CV/CVE losses the USN Fighter pools really got a boost last month. Sounds odd perhaps but its because most squadrons managed to divert to other CVs or airfields. When these fragments was disbanded it added a couple of hundred planes to the pool. Mostly Corsairs.

Posts: 6170
Joined: 1/26/2005 From: Planning the end of the world, well out to 2023!Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

quote:

ORIGINAL: JeffK

Well done Joc, Its good to see that the Allies still have a lot of scope for manoeuvre despite some the apparent assistance the JFB get in the game.

While its sad that AI seems to have done Obvert in, its only fair considering some of the situations you got put into.

I think that you and Obvert, GJ & Rader have shown some of the failings in the system in these later years, hopefully some tweaking can be done to solve them.

The AI giveth and the AI taketh!

Indeed there are some things not working too well in the game. But many of those are due to player choices like HRs ,PDU ON, Realistic research OFF etc. All in all I think it works pretty well with two exceptions: China and "the dive". Both are pretty much out of the scope of what players can do something about. I hope it might be tweaked a bit but I doubt it will be.

But for the most part I think both Erik and I have had a very fun experience. And given the scope of the game you canīt help but be baffled by how the Devs managed to make it all work out reasonably well in the end.

I think there is also a need for more balance of what you can control and what you cant.

The game allows you to assign individual pilots and airframes, but you cant make a squadron fly or order a fleet not to react.

Another shortfall, well outside of the scope of AE is the lack of a political system. I believe the japanese should have problems in co-ordinating IJA & IJN units bit the Allies should have major problems in mixing Nationalities and many units would also have limits on where they could fight. (3rd Aussie in China???)

Maybe the devs could ask for a debrief by players who get this far, this might get another level of improvement.

Game over! ______________________________________________________________________________

Here are the top pilots for the Allies!

-LTC G.Gibbons ended up as the leading Ace with 30 kills and 880 Missions! --FO T.Ingersoll of the RAAF was the busiest pilot with 1597 Missions in his Spitfire. 9 Kills. -MAJ R.M Baker ended up being the most experienced pilot. 99 EXP /76 Air /79 DEF. 21 Kills in a Corsair 1A

ORIGINAL: DOCUP As usual I am late to the party. Congrats on a wonderful game. I don't know about you but I do have withdraws from this AAR.

Thanks!

It feels very odd. I usually spent 2-3 hours per night doing the turn and AAR. And suddenly I have nothing to do! Kind of miss the social thing with sending the turns and talking in the AAR too.

But at least Iīm catching up on all those movies and TV series I havnīt had time to watch. Started with Fallen Skies and Walking dead a couple of nights ago. How come everyone in a zombie movie have never seen or heard about zombies?